Café Piece Supplement

I have a new post up at the Café. In researching and writing it, I discovered that it was ground I’d covered once before. In my first year of Ph.D. coursework I did a brief in-class presentation on the Jewish War, so I dug up some of the things I wrote then. One of these items was a timeline of the events which is now posted here as a PDF.

As is noted on the sheet itself, the timeline is based on John Hays and Sara Mandell’s The Jewish People in Classical Antiquity: From Alexander to Bar Kochba. I recommend this book if you want a lucid introduction to the complicated history that covers the time from the Maccabees through the destruction of the Temple and the second revolt in the 130’s. While thoroughly rooted in the extant sources (especially Josephus, Tacitus, etc. for the Jewish War section), it wears its extensive learning lightly and is accessible for people who aren’t biblical scholars. It’d be a fine choice for a pastor’s study or for the interested layperson looking to learn more.